MASTER / DEHUMAN - Decay Into Inferior Conditions

January 24, 2018, 2 months ago

(Xenokorp)

Greg Pratt

Rating: 7.5

reviewblack deathmasterdehuman

Czech-by-way-of-Chicago death metal OGs Master and Belgium DM young pups Dehuman like to tour together: this split is commemorating their third Euro run side by side. Master lay down four live tracks (“Master”, “Subdue The Politician”, “All We've Become”, and “Slaves To Society”) that focus more on the second half of the band's lengthy, solid catalogue. The recording quality is as raw as we'd want a Master live recording to be: it sounds like live death metal, and it sounds real, like Master should always sound. Here, their Lemmy-loving caveman DM pummel sounds as convincing as ever, this night—Helsinki, October 7th, 2016—just one of 30,000 that bassist/vocalist/mainman Paul Speckmann has spent fighting the good fight.

Dehuman follow this up with a similarly spirited delivery on their three songs, all of which are recorded live in the studio (a concept which, for some reason, always tickles me pink; love it when bands do this). The band tear through one song from each of their two full lengths, and one new one, all of which introduce new guitarist Lou-Indigo Caspar to the fold. The band's take on death metal is refreshing in its purity and simplicity, Dehuman taking an old-school approach to death metal and filtering it through some newer school sensibilities, but the end result is more '91 than '11, the band sticking their blinders on and plowing through these three songs in a way that would make elder Speckmann proud.